Is water a solid, liquid or gas?

Find out about the three states of matter with some fun games.

What does water look
like?

Is water always a liquid? After
all, you can run a bath from a tap and drink water from a glass.
What about on a hot day? You don't want a warm drink, so you put
some ice in the glass. Well, that's water too. Look at
that hot bath again. Do you see the steam rising? Water
again!

So how can water be three different
things at the same time? It's all to do with "states of matter".

There are three states of
matter:

Solid

-

like your head (Knock, knock!)

Liquid

-

like your blood (Yuck!)

Gas

-

like your breath (Smelly!)

Water can change between these
three states.

Solid

-

ice

Liquid

-

water

Gas

-

steam or vapour

To make water change from one state
to another we must change its temperature. To do that we need
to heat it up or cool it down.

If you but a balloon full of water
in the freezer, it cools down and you end up with
a solid lump of ice (if your parents let you try this then add some
food colouring to the water and then peel the balloon off the ice
like below. Beautiful!)

If your Gran makes a cup of tea,
she boils a kettle until steam rises from the spout. The
hot water has turned into a gas.

Trying breathing onto a mirror and
see what happens. Your warm breath makes a mist on the
glass. The water vapour from your huff'n'puff has
cooled on the glass and turned back into liquid
drops of water.

So let's play some games to
find out what we've learnt.

In the first game, see if you can
help Steve from Deadly 60 to survive in the Arctic.

You need to change the state of
water to help him.

In the next game you must give Ruff
the dog a helping hand while Chet is away on holiday.
Afterwards, whay not try
the BBC Bitesize quiz to test your knowledge?

Have you learned everything there
is to know about the three states of matter?